Ed Westcott, famed Oak Ridge photographer, turns 90

Ed Westcott is pictured with a collection of this photographs on display at the Oak Ridge Museum of Science and Energy on Monday during a celebration of Westcott's 90th birthday. Wescott worked as a photographer for the Department of Energy and is well known for his photographs documenting the Manhattan Project.
(SAUL YOUNG/NEWS SENTINEL)

Ed Westcott is greeted by Sorista Tary on Monday at the Oak Ridge Museum of Science and Energy during a celebration of Westcott's 90th birthday. Wescott worked as a photographer for the Department of Energy and is well known for his photographs documenting the Manhattan Project.
(SAUL YOUNG/NEWS SENTINEL)

OAK RIDGE — In 1942, Ed Westcott was among the first few dozen employees to arrive at the East Tennessee site for ultrasecret work on the first atomic bombs, and he was the only one authorized to use a camera.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Generations of Oak Ridgers, Manhattan Project veterans, historians and history lovers of all ages are grateful to Westcott for recording the important events and everyday dramas of early Oak Ridge on film and sharing his artistry in black-and-white photographs that today — seven decades later — still uniquely tell a story that's been chronicled every which way but loose.

Friends and admirers gathered Monday at the American Museum of Sciences & Energy to celebrate Westcott's 90th birthday.

"Without Ed Westcott's photographs, we would be at a loss in telling our history of Oak Ridge and the magnificent things that happened here," Y-12 historian Ray Smith said.

Westcott listened to heaps of praise, shook hands all around, and posed with everybody for anybody who had a camera, and there were a lot of cameras at the event. The 90-year-old Westcott, whose birthday was actually 10 days earlier, seemed to enjoy it all.

One of the highlights of the evening was the unveiling of a 1947 photograph of Westcott himself, capturing him in midair as he jumped to test the capabilities of new strobe-lighting to make sure it worked as planned.

The photograph will be on display as part of the Westcott exhibit at the American Museum of Science & Energy, 300 S Tulane Ave., for a while and then perhaps be shown elsewhere, Smith said.